New Castle, Pennsylvania, USA

SUMMARY New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. The population is 23,000. It is the county seat of Lawrence County and is the commercial centre of a fertile agricultural region.

New Castle is known both as the “hot dog capital of the world” and the “fireworks capital of America.” Its chili dogs are the product of Greek immigrants who came to New Castle in the early 20th century and established restaurants along with their homes. The notoriety for fireworks is because of two local fireworks companies of international stature, S.Vitale Pyrotechnic Industries, Inc. (Pyrotecnico) and Zambelli Internationale.

HISTORY: In 1798, John Carlysle Stewart, a civil engineer, travelled to western Pennsylvania to resurvey the “donation lands” resurveyed lands, which had been reserved for veterans of the Revolutionary War. He discovered that the original survey had neglected to stake out approximately 50 acres (200,000 m2) at the confluence of the Shenango River and the Neshannock Creek, at that time a part of Allegheny County. Claiming the land for himself, he laid out what was to become the town of New Castle. Stewart laid out the town of New Castle in April 1798. New Castle became a borough in 1825 and later became a part of Mercer County. In 1849 the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania signed an act creating Lawrence County named in honor of U.S. Navy Captain James Lawrence. New Castle became a city in 1869 and was headed by its first Mayor.

In 1849, a group of Old Order Amish families from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, settled just north of New Castle in New Wilmington. Later migrations from Holmes County, Ohio would make this Amish community one of the largest in Pennsylvania. Approximately 2,000 Amish live and work presently in the townships north of New Castle.
The first Warner Brothers’ theatre, the Cascade, opened in New Castle in 1907. The New Castle Playhouse is the premier location for top amateur performances. Catch the Pittsburgh Symphony in the historic Scottish Rite Cathedral. For a hands-on experience , the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts offers more than 80 workshops and the Celebrity Series at Westminster College showcases world entertainment.
New Castle has a large Arab-American population whose culture is visible throughout the community. Large numbers of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants were attracted by the city’s prosperity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their culture is especially visible in the local cuisine, which makes popular use of items such as stuffed grape leaves, lamb on the rod, kibbe, and garlic sauce.